We live in a world where buying a house requires a huge amount of money. House prices keep increasing, and people are taking out morgages which last for decades. I’ve seen mortgages offered for as long as 50 years. Many of us are facing the real possibility that we may never be able to buy a house. Isn’t there a better way? Actually, yes, maybe there is.
Cob (also known as adobe) is a cheap building material, used since at least 8000 BC, made from subsoil, water, straw, and sometimes lime. Lots of people take a cynical view of “mud brick” buildings, but as a building material, cob is used around the world – notably in southern England, where cob houses which are hundreds of years old prove that excessive rain doesn’t shorten the lifespan of these buildings.
Simply put, if you can acquire a plot of land, you can build a cob house for a fraction of the cost of buying one built from bricks, using locally sourced materials and scrap. If you’re physically able to do so, you could literally build it yourself – though it’s quite labour intensive, so a group effort would probably be a better idea. As an added plus, building with cob is a lot like sculpting, meaning you can easily create organic shapes and forms, and create shelves and furniture from the walls themselves.
On the other hand, if you have physical disabilities (or just want to make sure it’s done properly), professional cob architects and builders can be hired, and your house could be tailored to your personal needs.
If you’re budgeting to buy a house anyway, the money you’re not spending could be spent on a sizeable greenhouse or conservatory, solar panels, a wind turbine, or even just a good sized plot of land to build on and turn into your own personal forest. You could even have a geodesic dome built to enclose your house.
You can find a few more details at these websites:
Of course, building a house from scratch probably isn’t for everyone. But wouldn’t it be nice to not have a mortgage or electric bills, and have a house you designed yourself?
